Otis Boykin

Otis Boykin is best known for inventing an improved electrical resistor used in computers, radios, television sets and a variety of electronic devices. His resistor helped reduce the cost of those products. Otis Boykin also invented a variable resistor used in guided missile parts, a control unit for heart stimulators, a burglar-proof cash register and a chemical air filter. In total, Otis Boykin patented twenty-eight electronic devices.

Otis Boykin - Biography

Otis Boykin was born on August 29, 1920 in Dallas, Texas.

In 1941, after graduating from Fisk University, Otis Boykin was employed as a laboratory assistant for the Majestic Radio and TV Corporation of Chicago, testing automatic controls for airplanes. He later became a research engineer with the P.J. Nilsen Research Laboratories, and eventually founded his own company Boykin-Fruth, Incorporated.

Otis Boykin died of a heart failure in 1982.